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BANGKOK: A boat carrying dozens of migrants has sunk in rough seas in the Malacca Strait off Malaysia, killing at least 14 people, according to Malaysian rescuers.

The tragedy has reignited fears about a new wave of persecuted Rohingya making a perilous journey in unsafe boats across the Bay of Bengal to flee persecution in Myanmar.

The boat, which maritime officials estimated had about 70 people aboard, had left Sabak Bernam in Malaysia’s western state of Selangor for Sumatra in neighbouring Indonesia when the accident happened.

The number of survivors stood at 19, the agency’s director of search and rescue operations, Captain Robert Teh Geok Chuan, told Reuters, including 15 rescued by fishermen earlier, though the death toll could rise.

In May, Thailand cracked down on human trafficking networks as several thousand Rohingya and Bangladeshi boat people landed in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand after being abandoned by smugglers.

Mass graves of more than 200 others who had been murdered by traffickers were found in remote areas of Thailand and Malaysia.

Images of starving and distressed families stranded at sea shocked the world.

No boats had been reported in South-east Asian waters in recent weeks.

But rights activists say state-sponsored persecution of Rohingya in Myanmar has not ended despite the urgings of South-east Asian countries which struggled to deal with the boat people crisis.

Myanmar’s military-dominated government has refused to agree to the right of Rohingya to return to Myanmar.

More than a million Rohingya living in Myanmar’s western Arakan state are denied basic freedoms of movement, marriage, childbirth and other aspects of daily life.

Human rights groups accuse authorities in Myanmar, which is also called Burma, of trying to coerce Rohingya to identify as Bengali in a crude strategy to erase Rohingya ethnic identity and send them to Bangladesh.

The boat sank on Thursday afternoon off Malaysia’s western coast near the town of Bernam in central Selangor state.

In July it was revealed Australia has accepted just 25 Rohingya refugees despite thousands fleeing persecution.

Note: Changes have been made, PHUKET WAN and Reuters is not responsible for these.